Another tough day, but at least its over tomorrow

This is going to be a boring post about work stuff.

The arbitration is in the morning. I'll be REALLY glad when it's over and I can deal with the rest of the insanity on my desk.

I decided not to wake up Lance next door, and left a note for him about not being able to come tonight.

When I got to work, the attorney was there at 8:30am, instead of 10, when I was expecting him. I had to find him a workspace and give him my adding machine, which when I'm working on year end is like my right hand.

I finally got him settled in, found him an office for the afternoon, and did callbacks, just in time to get everyone rounded up into the meeting about the mediation account (I am experienced enough at this point to know that they will "forget" or not know where it is if they don't really want to go any way). Of course no one had any of the documents I had rounded up months before, so I got them together - again - while he talked to the product person and account rep.

After the meeting I was able to spend an hour or so at my desk. He did take me to lunch, which was nice. We went to Saffron and had fab Indian food. He was also gracious enough to let me off the hook about dinner. That was really nice of him, since I was really dreading it. He has been very kind to me when we have been on the road on cases before, and I really should have been more hospitable, I guess. I was just so harried today though, that when he tossed out a time constraint about dinner I was pretty much on it like a duck on a June-bug.

I spent the afternoon alternately trying to beat the rest of the documents out of the product person (since he had completely ignored my instructions about his initial documentation, of course), correct and complete year end (despite incorrect figures from last month, which had to be changed, affecting a lot of the work I had already done), and politely beat some mediation authority levels out of my boss. He met with his boss in September about this account, but didn't email me about the results of that meeting. When the mediation was moved from October to December, everyone promptly forgot all about it. So he didn't know the settlement authorization on the account, but didn't want to call his boss to get it, since that would involve admitting that he hadn't kept the records from their meeting.

I finally managed to motivate the product manager to pull some documents about closing time. He had only known I had to have them for tomorrow morning for about five and a half fucking hours. I think he finally started pulling them just because he thought I was going to go postal. He wasn't far wrong either. It is only through the grace of years of civilization and repression that I was able not to remove his head from his shoulders. That and not having a mace or a dull olive fork to hand. So he spent a half hour pulling docs, and I spent an hour after that collating them, making copies, and making sure the attorney understood them. My boss finally made a decision about authority levels.

I left the office at 7, having finally assembled all I need for in the morning. Exhausted, but at least finally ready.

I talked to Brad a bit on the way home, just to mentally separate from work. I ran through the grocery store because I needed lettuce for the furkey sandwich I was longing for. The sandwich was lovely.

I've noticed that I don't mind spending time by myself nearly as much as I used to anymore. It has stopped being a sentence and become more of a refuge. I'm not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing.

I saw Lance come in and popped over there to take him some apple butter and apologize for having to cancel out on tonight. We'll get together tomorrow to buy pictures. I also got his card to pass along to Russ. He and Billy want their picture made, and I know Russ will help him out getting started. Russ is a small businessman too, and he understands how important word of mouth is.